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Story

Synopsis

On the morning of November 17, Dare arrives at ONI’s Nairobi office—since dubbed their new EAP headquarters following the destruction of New Mombasa’s Alpha Site a month prior and used to more closely monitor the unfolding situation near the industrial town of Voi—from the Quito Terminus to meet with her superior, Admiral Corinthia Hansen, Section Chief of Section One. They touch on Vergil’s intel regarding the Ark and Halo, and most importantly the Prophet of Truth, who had recently landed his ship directly onto the artifact. Keeping tabs from the field, ONI Recon 111 has informed them that Commander Miranda Keyes has devised a plan to have Lord Hood’s Battle Group Victory directly assault the ship. 

Much to her surprise, Hansen orders her to relieve Keyes of duty and take over Crow’s Nest operations under ONI, in the hopes of putting a stop to Hood’s offensive so as to minimize public attention towards the alien artifact, especially given recent excursions by “tourists” and journalists—even bad enough that Dr. Endesha almost found out. Dare vehemently disagrees with this, stating this may be their only shot at the supposed Ark, but Hansen says ONI doesn’t work off assumptions, countering “orders are orders.” Though Dare’s skeptical Keyes and Hood won’t go down that easily, Hansen is well aware, having worked with her father years prior, but reminds her that this is technically not only ONI’s work, but her work as well, as it has been since she discovered the Superintendent’s data on the artifact. Her team will remain liaised with Keyes until the takeover. A promotion to Rear Admiral—and by extension, an avenue to becoming Section Chief herself—is in it for her, and she accepts. 

Meanwhile, sappers of the Marines Corps of Engineers have been assembling a MagLev train convoy to surreptitiously transport ordnance and vehicles from the city’s AMG Transport Dynamics facility to Crow’s Nest in direct support of the eventual offensive or for general reinforcement (given that flying there would only attract the Covenant’s AA guns). Dare and ONI security members are embedded into the convoy to reach the base, with the train either entering a comms blackout so as not to betray its or the base’s position. Due to this, those on the train are unaware Crow’s Nest was mostly destroyed very early into their trip. Some time later, the “last train to Crow’s Nest” mysteriously comes to a stop and goes dark. Suddenly, they are ambushed by the Flood. They eventually get the train started again to escape into town, but somehow crash before they make it. Following the train wreck, Dare escapes via one of the moored vehicles, leading to the main open map just outside Voi.

Shortly thereafter, she manages to make contact with 111, who direct her back to their hidden location, surprised she’s alive after not hearing from her. Once safely inside, they debrief Dare on the Flood; though speculated as rumors, they recognize the threat posed by the Flood based on info first gleaned from Installation 04 on October 19 (re: Eleventh Hour Reports)–info even Dare didn’t know about prior–leaving the team to wonder if the UNSC inadvertently led the Flood to Earth.

Furthermore, they recount the past several hours through recorded F-99 drone footage: that they saw Crow’s Nest exploding from a distance; were later ordered by Keyes to shut off their gear and fall back; during exfiltration their subprowler was clipped by AA fire when it failed to properly cloak, and was shot down, killing their CO; the Portal unexpectedly opens, caught on camera. They also may catch reports or sighting of the Indulgence of Conviction‘s entry. Eventually they made their way to this facility and holed up.

With communications severed and the area becoming increasingly hostile, they determine they need to set out to find a way to safety. The team mentions linking up with Battle Group Victory, but with SATCOM/drones down, they won’t be able to navigate their way out. Due to Flood spores choking the atmosphere, they armor up; the reference map of the area in the team’s possession is uploaded into the armor’s VISR and made available via NAV. 

Fully equipped, Dare and co. set out to figure out how to escape (which makes up the bulk of the actual gameplay).

Throughout the night, the members of ONI Recon 111 perish one by one in various ways, leaving Dare as the only survivor. Towards the end, the Fleet of Retribution arrives and begins to glass the area, forcing Dare and any remaining members to abandon their hideout and get as far away as possible ASAP. To her surprise, she notices a signal flare emanating from Crow’s Nest. Amidst the glassing, she races her way there and makes contact with a group of survivors holed up in a hangar. Fighting past the reanimated corpses of its past occupants, she reaches the top only to find the survivors have already been infected by the Flood. She struggles to kill them all and is about to be overwhelmed when an Air Force SAR team arrives via Nightingale VTOL and helps dispatch the remaining Flood forms, saving her life. 

A day later, Hansen arrives at Dare’s makeshift HAZMAT quarantine ward aboard the UNSC Providence (FFG-334), holding position near the Portal. Hansen debriefs her about the night’s events. In addition to maintaining the secrecy of the artifact, Section One is now tasked to cover-up Retribution’s glassing as a sneak Covenant attack. Conflicted and guilty over 111’s deaths, Dare voices her concern that the public deserve to know what happened at Voi, but Hansen threatens her with a psych eval. Needless to say, Dare doesn’t get the promotion. Hansen tells her to get some rest.

Epilogue

Weeks later, Dare, looking much better, arrives at the Voi Exclusion Zone, a buzz of activity, Portal now well guarded. Dare turns to see Buck and Alpha-Nine, indicating this is Operation: JOINT MONITOR. Buck reminds a distracted Dare that it’s her birthday, and says he bought them a week-long trip on Sundown in advance of Valentine’s Day.

They share a moment, though Dare is obviously keeping so much hidden from him. Buck returns to his squad as they complain that even though they should be celebrating the last of the Covenant being driven off Earth a day prior, they’ve been “playing janitor” for days, and still don’t even know what they’re supposed to find here—confused about this “freaky Covenant goo,” as they’ve apparently been told. Scouring the rubble, she finds one of 111’s dog tags in the debris–determinant on how the player connected with them–that makes her remember what she endured.

In the background, Dutch, for comical effect, mans a Cyclops to burn away some rubble, forcing everyone to just argue louder as we zoom out, showing the full extent of the damage in the daylight. 

Legendary Ending

Shortly after the war, Dare meets with former NMPD officer Mike Branley and Hansen at the ONI office in Nairobi, this time accompanied by Quick to Adjust. Branley brings in Sadie Endesha, who is introduced to Quick for the first time, and reunited with the Vergil amalgam inside him.

DLC Campaign

Follows ONI Recon 111 during the ambush, minutes before the Flood’s arrival. You play as Commander Fergus, who perishes to cover the others’ escape before the start of the main story.

Featured

Introduction

Concept

Without a doubt, Halo 3: ODST is my favorite game in the franchise because it is the most different. From the open-world nighttime “hub” of New Mombasa to the compact character-driven story to Marty’s award-winning jazz-inspired score, ODST ventured where no Halo game had gone before, proving not only that Halo could be just as rich when it goes small, but that it could hold its own even with Master Chief out of the picture. As Bungie’s first game without him, ODST’s great cast more than made up for his absence, introducing us to now fan-favorite Buck and a tragic Rookie. However, one character in particular hardly got the limelight, which, given her occupation, was probably by design at the time: Captain Veronica Dare, an agent of the Office of Naval Intelligence’s Section One. 

Despite being the highest-ranking character in the game, we hardly get to know her. In fact, unlike the other characters, Dare doesn’t get a mission to herself. Though “Data Hive” and the ensuing events grant her a lot of speaking time (especially against the silent Rookie), for the most part, Dare had been relegated to hiding underground for most of the game due to story purposes. And even with Dare having the final say at the end of the story, the extent of her visual representation ended there, and anything we later knew about her came only from Buck’s perspective in the followup novel New Blood and its recent sequel, Bad Blood. 

An “ODST 2” revisiting Alpha-Nine has been on many people’s minds, but it seems that the two novels have all but confirmed that won’t, and can’t, happen. I’ve often toyed with the notion that the squad could return in a direct sequel game, perhaps set during the late Battle for Earth in the URNA Southwest Campaign—taking them to a desert environment this time—or even a prequel game in New Alexandria on Reach, in which we don’t get the full squad, but get enough of them to be invested. I’ve even thought about a prequel game which follows each member in their own mission prior to joining Alpha-Nine, but just like the aforementioned ideas, they never quite worked out or were otherwise invalidated by the content of the novels.

It suddenly dawned on me that instead of the squad, we could—even should—have Veronica Dare as our protagonist in a direct sequel instead. Not only is the time ripe for a playable female lead in Halo, but for an ODST sequel to be realized in some way, now nearly a decade after it originally released. Looking at the big picture, Halo: Out of Shadow would serve the dual purposes of acting as a spiritual successor to ODST and as a “soft” re-introduction of the Flood.

Title

Out of Shadows was inspired by Marty O’Donnell’s track of the same name, which most prominently plays during the beginning of the Halo 3 mission, “Tsavo Highway,” and is especially appropriate in that regard considering this game takes place in Voi.

In a figurative sense, I viewed the title as an expression of Dare’s new role in the game, forced to come “out of the shadows” as an ONI agent and fight boots-on-the-ground; we’ve actually read it referenced in New Blood, when Buck mentions that Dare does her job “from the shadows” and doesn’t contend with what the regular UNSC trooper has to contend with. Furthermore, upon meeting Jameson Locke in the Halo 5 mission, “Alliance”, the Arbiter jeers “ONI…out of the shadows,” which shows exactly how ONI personnel are viewed by others.

Another interpretation one might have is that the title actually refers to the Flood, which itself has emerged from the shadows, or that Dare and the UNSC has literally run out of shadows in which to hide from them.

Gameplay

Setting

Inspired by ODST’s open hub-world, Out of Shadows would take place entirely in an open environment of its own. Whereas ODST focused solely on the business district of New Mombasa, this game would have Voi in its entirety act as the world—as a small city or town, it’d be much larger than ODST’s version to accommodate the trappings of a full-length game. And, just as ODST’s New Mombasa capitalized on and expanded what was shown to us at the time of Halo 2’s version during the back-to-back missions “Outskirts” and “Metropolis,” this version of Voi will require a similar makeover to flesh out what little we saw of the town during “The Storm” and “Floodgate” missions. In fact, we hardly saw any of the town because both missions were relegated to a single Traxus-owned factory, Complex 09. Indeed, while Voi has become a futuristic factory town where industry is king, other explorable locations will make it feel like a real—albeit now-abandoned—place, such as:

  • Voi Greater Outlands Police Bureau HQ
  • Hotels, apartments, restaurants, bars, etc.
  • Offices and branches
  • A municipal airport
  • Port Authority 
  • MagLev terminal
  • Global Water Campaign (GWC) pipelines and underground reservoirs (great for sidestepping the Flood)
  • A beached cargo ship, or downed Albatross, the Alby Damned.
  • Town outskirts
  • Traxus Factory Complex 71 (the setting for the multiplayer map, Foundry)

As such, Complex 09 will be “walled off” from the player or hidden behind the debris of Indulgence of Conviction. The purpose of making it inaccessible is to not rehash what was already seen in Halo 3 and to accentuate other, larger parts of the town. Part of the mystique of the first game is that we play just as Master Chief leaves, and this game seeks to make his actions feel impactful but just of out reach as well—a factor in making the complex off-limits.


Akin to New Mombasa’s subdivision into sectors from ODST, Voi will be divided into at least four sections which are based on several of the town’s present-day electoral wards: Marungu, Sagalla, Ngolia, and Kasigau. Progress and completion within this sections won’t be measured on how well Dare “contains” the Flood outbreak, but rather how many story and side missions she finishes and how many collectibles she acquires. 


Futuristic Voi’s map size could very well be 50 square kilometers in-game. Though a natural boundary perimeter may appears in parts, Covenant shield barriers, an electrified fence at Tsavo East National Park, and a wall of fire created by the Fleet of Retribution’s glassing efforts would set the perimeter in the place; to keep Dare stranded for game purposes, air vehicles would be almost nonexistent. The Portal would dominate the evening sky at most points, and Kilimanjaro might be visible to the west, but cloud cover, glassing, and Flood-tainted atmosphere would obscure both in certain regions for variety’s sake.

Armor

Most armor options are derived in-universe—what ONI Recon 111 would have at its disposal. Each option has pros and cons and attachments fit any model. In addition to their mainline MJOLNIR work, ONI’s Materials Group created special variants of their existing models for non-augmented personnel, and maintained an exclusive agreement with Section One’s special units. Though Dare utilized a new Mark VI Recon helmet by the Battle of Mombasa, Recon 111 still retains the Mark V models that were originally contracted for them prior to the Fall of Reach, variously outfitted with CNM, CBRN, and UA-HUL attachments:    

  • RECON Helmet
  • SCOUT Helmet
  • HAZOP Helmet

VISR

VISR works nearly the same as it did in ODST, featuring NAV, INTEL, and COM tabs, and can only be activated when donning a helmet after the first mission. A new feature is that through VISR the player will able to utilize a spy drone for short periods of time in order to scout and target enemies or locations up ahead. 

Stamina and Health

This feature is unchanged from ODST, and the player can replenish their health through Optican health packs found around the map, including several kiosks. 

Audio Logs

The equivalent to ODST’s Sadie’s Story will be told via a few dozen collectible audio logs in the form of audio data pads strewn across Voi. These pads are essentially taped notes from war correspondent Petra Janecek, who was present at ground zero in Voi and whose account—from touchdown on the battlefield to her evacuation—would provide the basis for her thoughts in the First Strike adjunct story, Petra, and would be narrated by Cobie Smulders, her voice actor from Hunt the Truth. Working titles for this narrative are Petra’s Papers or The Janecek Records or anything to that effect.

As with ODST, the player can listen to them upon collection or store them in the VISR for later review. Collecting a certain amount within a region will unlock a converted GWC bunker underground containing weapons, ammo, Optican health packs and/or vehicles left behind by police or militia. 

Signs

Posted around the town are evacuation notices and personal notes left behind by civilian dockworkers. While not collectible, they help inform the player about the previous battle and clue them in to points of interest, similar to notes left behind by the denizens of Hope County in Far Cry 5. 

General Features

  • At the start of the game, Dare has shed her special S-1/ONI variant of the ODST armor (because it was only intended for a high-risk, special-use mission) from ODST’s Epilogue in favor of Navy/ONI service uniform due to her new non-combat command assignment, so for the intro part of the game, there will be no VISR until she gets armor. 
  • Recon’s hideout acts as a main base, where weapons/supplies can be stocked.
  • Ally gameplay could be like “Guns for Hire” in Far Cry 5 in that only a few members can be recruited at a time while the rest remain at base.
  • A small portable spy drone can be used for aerial recon and target identification but has a battery charge (like in Ghost Recon: Wildlands, so as not to be able to realistically leave the area for help). 
  • While Flood are the main enemies and the Covenant is secondary, both are able to engage each other. This gives the player the opportunity to sneak past certain encounters.
  • With the exception of a few dockworkers and others, most civilians have evacuated the battle zone a while ago, leaving mostly military forces and VGOPB deputies in the area.

Supporting Characters

Admiral Corinthia Hansen

In accordance with the newly-minted Cole Protocol of 2535, then-Captain Hansen was in charge of ONI’s undercover operation to track the source of Insurrectionists’ modified Covenant weaponry in Charybdis IX’s capital, Scyllion. She would narrowly survive the ensuing battle against the Covenant, going on to receive a number of field promotions before attaining the rank of Admiral and appointed Section Chief of Section One. At the onset of the Battle for Earth in October 2552, Hansen issued the order to Captain Dare to retrieve New Mombasa’s Superintendent AI and the data it held on the Portal artifact. Hansen approved Dare’s request for Alpha-Nine after being impressed with Edward Buck’s CV, and his actions at Charybdis IX in particular. 

The Foreman

New Mombasa’s economic rise during the 24th century warranted the construction of an ocean inlet that connected Voi to the docks of the Mombasa Tether for the purposes of mass cargo transport. Thanks to the significance of the space elevator, Voi saw an influx of new business and with it, the need for an AI to help handle it all: thought of as the Superintendent’s “older brother,” the first-generation “dumb” AI known as the Foreman was created in the early 25th century to manage factory and industrial operations in Voi such as freighting, manufacturing, shipping and scheduling. Though less intelligent and less far-reaching than its younger sibling, the Foreman was nonetheless an integral part of keeping the town alive and was well-liked by the employees it oversaw.

Mike Branley

An ex-NMPD officer who fled his corrupt outfit and New Mombasa itself along with Sadie Endesha, Branley and Sadie split up in Nairobi under unclear circumstances. When Voi came under attack by the Covenant, Branley returned south to help out in any way he could, using his background in law enforcement to save many lives. Using his pseudonym, Harris “Two Shot” Kibaki, to avoid suspicion by any cops still loyal to his former commissioner, he eventually became the de facto sheriff of the Voi Greater Outlands Police Bureau, a smaller, more wholesome department than the NMPD, and coordinated efforts with the UNSC and other local resistance to combat the aliens. However, as one of the last remaining members of his bureau by the end of the battle, he was woefully unprepared to face the Flood.

Nolan Byrne

A hardcore, SPECWAR-trained Marine who was old enough to fight side-by-side with Avery Johnson during the Insurrection into the start of the Covenant War, this grizzled Irishman was present at Voi as the CO of the Marines fighting for the savannah, where he’d eventually fall to the Flood.

ONI Recon 111

Your Teammates

A deep recon or “special reconnaissance” unit that operates behind enemy lines for long durations, Recon 111 is often specially tasked with working in proximity to Covenant glassing operations deemed significant by ONI, as well as in other hazardous environments that normal units can’t otherwise access. As such, they are typically outfitted with environmental and stealth equipment and only have defensive capabilities, differentiating them from remote contact teams. 

Comprised of Commander Eric C. Fergus, Lieutenant Commander Kerstin Thornhill, Warrant Officer Cobus Mai, Lance Corporal Amelie Naranjo, and Flight Officer William Gaulin, their most recent action of note was observing glassing patterns at the Babd Catha Ice Shelf on Reach in mid-August of 2552. Each member was believed to have been KIA on Reach, and their names eventually listed on ONI Alpha Site’s memorial, unbeknownst to them. However, in truth, they were delayed in evacuating the planet and returning to Earth.

At some point after the Battle of Mombasa, F-99 Wombat drones were destroyed or disabled by Truth’s incoming fleet, preventing the UNSC from getting eyes on what the Covenant were excavating, thereby prompting the need for close-up surveillance on the ground. Operating from a subprowler just off Tsavo Highway, the team liaised both with UNSC forces at Crow’s Nest and their ONI handlers at the Nairobi HQ, providing intel on-the-go. 

Eric C. Fergus

Nickname: “Ferg”

Born: 5/30/2512, Manassas, Reach

Died: 11/17/2552, near Voi, Kenya

Bio: For Eric, the Today, Tomorrow, Forever mural that he passed by everyday to school gained new meaning once Reach learned of the Covenant threat. Before he knew it, he’d be helljumping to far-flung worlds with the famous 105th on the riskiest missions in the history of mankind.

A member of the Special Purpose Forces, Ferg stalked Covenant forces back to their bases of operation for the purposes of sabotage and disruption, helping to expose enemy cloaked units or direct artillery against vital positions, boosting his reputation not only as a renaissance man within the ODSTs, but as one of the most fearless soldiers in the entire Marine Corps.

Ferg’s atypical rapport with Spartans was an important factor in his selection to the secretive Beta-5 Division’s Asymmetrical Action Group late in the war, where he’d prove himself as an inspiring leader and cross-branch unifier for his operatives. When humanity moved solely to the defensive during the final years, he was appointed CO of ONI Recon 111.

Though glassing became commonplace during his career, witnessing it on his homeworld forever changed him; damage done to the mural left him wondering if there’d ever even be a tomorrow. Ferg returned to Earth disheartened, but nevertheless led Recon deep into the scorched Kenyan savanna to surveil the Portal site. 

Kerstin Thornhill

Born: 12/1/2518, Lister, Aigburth, Ganymede

Bio: As British descendants, Thornhill’s family might characterize her as more Buckingham guard than MI6 spymaster: bullying in her youth gave way to a staid and serious demeanor later on, characterized by a reserved but wary nature around anyone she meets. Her respect for order, general distrust and ability to keep a secret made her a natural for ONI, but rampant nepotism and obstructive bureaucracy had unexpectedly slowed her ascent to the coldest and most impersonal of Section One’s higher offices.

Chief Hansen would eventually notice, and promote the young analyst, though to a sorry SIGINT position in the Prowler Corps, leading Thornhill to suspect Hansen held a grudge. Forced to feel the heat in the field, as an astute observer and listener Thornhill excelled in SIGINT and electronic countermeasures, moving between Sections One and Two with relative ease—though only laterally, as fellow operative Michael Sullivan used to tease.

Despite serving faithfully, and famously, aboard the UNSC Wink of an Eye, Thornhill was unhappy. However, when it came to ONI politics, she would have to bite her tongue from endangering her position any further, and acquiesced to long-haul participation in Operation: HYPODERMIC. As the Covenant War dragged on and desk jobs literally began to disappear, her enmity for aliens was matched only by that for people; Sully and Hansen were just two in a long hit list.

Also on that list was her CO Eric Fergus, whose untimely death during the Battle of Voi elevated her to head of ONI Recon 111. Granted authority over a team she doesn’t care for in the last place on Earth she’d rather be, Thornhill knows that if she keeps her head down and ears up, she may yet outlast her subordinates to be granted a cubicle by virtue of surviving—though by this point she’d settle for a cozy listening post away from it all.

Cobus Mai

Nickname: “Coby” 

Born: 3/13/2526, Dusar, Terceira 

Bio: Being born during a typhoon on the newfound stormy planet Terceira would set the tone for the rest of Cobus’ life. His father, an Asklon executive, temporarily moved the family to a company home in the only settlement of Dusar for development and testing of the new tropical Warthog variant. Adding more to his mother’s chagrin, young Coby couldn’t help but venture out of their protective housing to play in the rain and extreme weather.

Windstorms, hurricanes, tsunamis: Coby’s seen it all in force and up close, racking up serious bragging rights as an amateur storm chaser during his spare time he called “Mai Time,” while cruising through an internship at one of the planet’s weather research facilities. He even named a tropical storm after himself. However, when his father’s project had ended, so did the fun, and the family relocated near Asklon HQ in Seven Hills on Mars, much to Coby’s dismay.

Suffocated by his terraformed and controlled surroundings, Cobus fled during college by way of a falsified science scholarship, joining the UNSC Engineering Corps as a radar operator, surveying atmospheric phenomena during the expedition on Thales. When the college found out about his bogus endowment, ONI covered for him, and granted the fervent thrill-seeker a free ride if he came and worked for them.

After completing the prerequisite training for ONI at The Mill, he was eventually permitted civilian status as a meteorological attaché—specializing in the use of climate-related and geophysical MASINT systems—while undertaking hazardous operations for ONI. Before reassignment to ONI Recon 111, his most recent stint involved leading a task force into the latest crystalline superstorm on Chi Ceti IV’s moon, Muroto, to assess the longevity of Materials Group’s mining facilities. 

Amelie Naranjo

Nickname: “Mel”

Born: 10/7/2525, Ciudad de Arias, Verge

Bio: Amelie grew up in a rough part of town as a petty criminal, often acting as lookout for her brothers’ thefts. As her siblings grew up into a life of more desperate crime, Mel instead joined the Army to escape poverty. Though smaller and less tenacious than the rest of her cadet class, she quickly found a penchant for marksmanship, more comfortable in the back of the unit than the front.

A gifted sniper, Mel was pulled from regular duty and transferred to one of the Army’s specialized reconnaissance battalions, where she’d mostly operate as a cavalry scout and forward observer. Claiming to have never fired a shot in several battles during this time, her experience as a scout would nonetheless help her hone the art of patience, in addition to toughening her nerves against the tribulations of living off the land for long durations. When the rest of her unit was decimated at the Battle of New Jerusalem in July 2552, Mel managed to survive on her own in the wilderness for two weeks before being rescued.

Colonel Ackerson used his connections to protect the hardy sharpshooter by embedding her into the relatively “safer” ONI Recon 111 as its newest and youngest member before they deployed to Reach, acting as team overwatch and its other veteran combatant next to Fergus. Mel demonstrated exceptional counter-sniping skills during the team’s trek across the Babd Catha Ice Shelf, using a signature-suppressed anti-materiel rifle to pick off Covenant sentries zeroing in on their precarious position. 

William (Guillaume) Gaulin

Call sign: “Gauche”

Born: 8/28/2521, Canada, URNA, Earth

Bio: In the summer of 2539, the Gaulin family urged their teenaged son to flee to the secluded world of Nouveau Montreal in order to escape the inevitable, but Guillaume refused because he and a local girl named Lian Devereaux had fallen deeply in love. When Lian found out her relatives had been killed during the Covenant’s advance, she joined the UNSC out of high school, forcing them to break up. He wouldn’t see her again until several years later, now a pilot in the ODSTs, much to his shock.

Inspired to impress her back, he shed his hopeless romanticism, Americanized his name, and mustered up the courage to join the Navy with the intent to become a fighter pilot since the Marines wouldn’t take him. William stumbled during flight school, nicknamed “Bailin’ Bill,” or simply “Bail Out,” amongst his peers, and living up to it even after getting his wings by ejecting from the Battle of Sargasso before it even began.

Having failed as a fighter pilot, Bill was ready to call it quits when ONI encouraged him to become a test pilot for them instead. Though ONI secretly planned to use his misfortune as a scapegoat if anything went wrong, they were just as surprised as Bill when he proved to be capable flyer of more “boring” craft such as dropships, especially the Owl in its experimental phase. With his mustache and mojo back, Bill believed he could jump anywhere with the Navy, hoping to comb the skies of new worlds for his lost love.

Though they could easily just have told him Lian’s whereabouts, ONI leveraged this information to keep him on recon or otherwise covert missions due to the scarcity of pilots. Enamored by the promise of seeing her again, Bill agreed to one last tour, this time as pilot of ONI Recon 111’s subprowler; though the team felt Lian was too disturbing, they settled for Quebec 039.

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